certain shape, and it is the height of absurdity to predicate
such a thing of God, a being absolutely infinite. But meanwhile
by other reasons with which they try to prove their point, they
show that they think corporeal or extended substance wholly apart
from the divine nature, and say it was created by God. Wherefrom
the divine nature can have been created, they are wholly ignorant
; thus they clearly show, that they do not know the meaning of
their own words. I myself have proved sufficiently clearly, at
any rate in my own judgment (Coroll. Prop. vi, and note 2, Prop.
viii.), that no substance can be produced or created by anything
other than itself. Further, I showed (in Prop. xiv.), that
besides God no substance can be granted or conceived. Hence we
drew the conclusion that extended substance is one of the
infinite attributes of God. However, in order to explain more
fully, I will refute the arguments of my adversaries, which all
start from the following points :-
Extended substance, in so far as it is substance, consists,
as they think, in parts, wherefore they deny that it can be
infinite, or consequently, that it can appertain to God. This
they illustrate with many examples, of which I will take one or
two. If extended substance, they say, is infinite, let it be
conceived to be divided into two parts ; each part will then be
either finite or infinite. If the former, then infinite
substance is composed of two finite parts, which is absurd. If
the latter, then one infinite will be twice as large as another
infinite, which is also absurd.
Further, if an infinite line be measured out in foot lengths,
it will consist of an infinite number of such parts ; it would
equally consist of an infinite number of parts, if each part
measured only an inch : therefore, one infinity would be twelve